Microsoft’s anime Internet Explorer 11 promo is really rather weird

Inori Aizawa is an ugly duckling who now battles robots.

I'm not going to even begin to pretend I understand this promotion that Microsoft is using for Internet Explorer 11. The browser is personified as Inori Aizawa. She starts off all downbeat and sad. But then she kicks robot ass.

Inori Aizawa in action.

I like the music.

The video was created by Microsoft Singapore and shown at the 2013 Anime Festival Asia. There's a special version of Internet Explorer 11 that you can now download, but as far as we can tell, the only thing special about it is that it sets your homepage to a page with anime news and some Inori Aizawa pictures. You can also grab the pictures off SkyDrive if you want.

Apparently it's a Japanese meme, going back to at least 2008, because here's the Amiga ones from that year (the three girls are 3 different Amiga Operating Systems. You can probably recognise which one is AROS, and MorphOS seems to be holding the old AROS cat):

Apparently it's a Japanese meme, going back to at least 2008, because here's the Amiga ones from that year (the three girls are 3 different Amiga Operating Systems. You can probably recognise which one is AROS, and MorphOS seems to be holding the old AROS cat):

There are girls for the various Linux distros. Vista has two unofficial girls as well, and so does windows ME.

There is a recent manga playing with Android manufacturers, if mobile is your thing.

I am not going to even begin to pretend I understand this promotion that Microsoft is using for Internet Explorer 11. The browser is personified as Inori Aizawa. She starts off all downbeat and sad. But then she kicks robot ass.

I read some explanation somewhere that it was supposed to mirror IE. Unloved and barely competent back when, but recently, surprising people by being really quite good.

Humans with fox-like characteristics are rampant around fantasy-themed anime, airing right now, Tokyo Ravens has a character that has fox-like characteristics. Firefox has had many different 'anime-like' macots, most famous (and my favourite) is Foxeh.

OS-tan is a pretty old meme… actually. Here’s a video with Me-tan, but XP-tan, 95-tan, 98-kun, and 2000-tan also make appearances, and the creepy old guy is Norton-sensei (as in the software company, yes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdHPlGRDNc

Wait a second...at least one tech news site is wrong then, because another site I went to said that Microsoft actually had nothing to do with this character's creation, although they (MS) thought it was an interesting creation from some enthusiasts.

Microsoft has been creating official mascots for their software since Windows 7 and there are fan-made ones back forever. The Japanese love animated characters for everything. If you don't believe me Google Anpanman.

This would make perfect sense if it were actually happening in Japan. Not because of the of the anime thing, oh no, forget about that. But because, at least if you work in government, you wouldn't believe how many computers here are still running XP and Internet Explorer 7. I would welcome an upgrade campaign no matter the form it took.

That's not nice. But that song, and most of the ones that 'make it big' are Miku at her worst. Recommending anything is probably fruitless to most people, but try: Hayabusa, Travelling Mood, Why Can't I Even Dream? or Sunset. Of course she'll never sound quite human, but that's also part of the charm.

The character design of Inori Aizawa comes from Collateral Damage Studio. They've presented their sketch at least a month ago on Facebook, with neat details such as how her left arm is the address bar, her first name stands for prayer (because IE needs it), her Japanese initials spells out IE, and is a cousin to Hikaru Aizawa (AKA Taiwan's Silverlight). Presumably, some Microsoft division took interest and made an anime out of an animation studio in Singapore.